Owing to the high toxicity of mercury, in particular of organically bound mercury, which is also absorbed by humans directly or indirectly via the food chain, strict limiting values exist for the legally permissible emission of mercury, for example from incineration plants and power stations. Despite the currently already low mercury concentrations of clean gas,—the half-hourly mean value currently permissible in Germany for mercury emissions from waste incineration plants is 30 μg/m3 S.T.P. dry basis (S.T.P. db),—owing to high volumetric flow rates, for example from large power stations, considerable mercury loadings are achieved, so that further reduction of the currently permitted limiting values is sought.
A range of processes for reducing mercury emissions from power stations, waste incineration plants or the like are known from the literature. Which of the processes is expedient for a particular application depends greatly on the introduced load and on the chlorine content of the material to be burned. At a high chlorine content the proportion of ionic mercury in the flue gas is high. Ionic mercury may be readily removed in scrubbers. The quasi-water-insoluble metallic mercury can be converted into ionic mercury, for example by adding oxidizing agents, such as peroxides, ozone or sodium chlorite, in the boiler exit gas upstream of the flue gas cleaning system or in the dedusted boiler gas, and then removed in the flue gas cleaning system as for example in scrubbers. Further processes for removing mercury are: adding reactants, such as sodium tetrasulphite, to bind mercury by means of sulphur in the dirty boiler gas upstream of the flue gas emission control system or in partially cleaned up clean gas; improved scrubbing of ionic mercury by decreasing pH or pCl in the acid scrubber or by treatment with 1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-trithiol (trimercapto-S-triazine, TMT) in the weakly acidic or weakly alkaline scrubber; removing ionic and metallic mercury by sorption with addition of pulverulent sorbents or atomized suspensions.
Previous techniques for reduction are not sufficiently effective and, owing to their sometimes high additional capital costs and the additional consumption of operating media are relatively expensive.
It is an object of the invention to provide a process for removing mercury, in particular for the substantially complete removal of mercury (Hg), from flue gases of high-temperature processes. The process is to find the broadest possible application, as in the case of essentially constant low Hg concentrations, for example in coal-fired power stations, but also in the case of relatively high Hg concentrations, for example in sewage sludge incineration, or very high Hg concentrations, for example in domestic waste or hazardous waste incineration. Furthermore, the process should not require extensive refitting of the high-temperature plants and should require the smallest possible amount of additional operating media, so that the process can be implemented and operated inexpensively.